In a flash he spun and fought his way up a sharply tilting deck to the wall audio, thrust at its button, bawled a query. The mate's voice, shrill with terror, answered:
"The Dixie-rod, sir! It's jammed! We're trying to get it free, but it's locked! We're out of control—"
"Up rockets!" roared Lane. "Up rockets and blast!"
"They're cut, sir! The hypo's cold. We'll have to 'bandon ship—."
Abandon ship! Tim Mallory did not need Dorothy's sudden gasp to tell him what that meant to the trio caught in the observation turret. Earthlubber he might be, but he knew enough about the construction of space craft to realize that there were no auxiliary safety-sleds anchored to this section of the Orestes.
Venus was no longer a beaming platter of silver in the distance. They had burst through its eternal blanket of cloud, now; The world below was no longer a sphere, it was a huge saucer of green, swelling ominously with each flashing second. Tempests screamed about them, and the screaming was the triumphant cry of hungry death.
No ships. No time to seek escape. Life, which had but recently become a precious thing to Tim Mallory, was but a matter of minutes.
He saw the agony of indecision on Captain Jonathan Lane's face, heard, as in a dream, the skipper delivering the only possible order.
"Very well, Carter! 'Bandon ship!"
And the pilot's hectic query, "But where are you?"